COD3 has the three-way challenge of facing down competition from other wartime wannabes and satisfying demands for increasingly visceral combat thrills without departing from the series’ roots in the bloody realities of WWII. However, developers Treyarch have achieved all this with great aplomb.
Players are inserted into the muddy fatigues of soldiers in the American, British, Canadian and Polish armies, each fighting their own corners of the Normandy Breakout campaign, which took place immediately after D-Day.
Players of previous COD titles will be right at home with the gameplay mechanics, with the action shifting between outfits, individual soldiers and the various components of the campaign. But COD3 is no mere expansion pack...
The larger number of non-playable characters that are noisily involved in the bigger, more detailed campaigns certainly increases the series’ famed sense of “being there”. And as if to stress this point, Treyarch has introduced a “Close-Quarters” combat system that quite literally gets you into the grimacing face of your enemy.
Similarly we’re impressed by COD3’s destructible environments. Can’t see your enemy? Then blow away the wall he’s cowering behind. Although the same can happen to you too. The game’s more open-ended structure is another innovation. Leaving players to devise their own routes to achieving mission objectives is, well, liberating!
However the sheer variety of missions is COD3’s signature feature. Intense SAS Commando raids, thrilling parachute drops, setting explosive charges while under fire and clambering atop enemy tanks or commandeering many other cool vehicles (you’ll love the Motorcycle and sidecar) are just a few of the elements that combine to make Call of Duty 3 the best game of the series yet. And it’s playable for 24 players on Xbox Live too!
